Basic Education
USAID's basic education program promotes increased access to and completion of basic education. Funding for basic education has increased dramatically, from $98 million in FY 2000 to $465 million in FY 2006. In FY 2005 USAID supported basic education in fifty countries.
USAID's efforts in basic education are guided by the Agency's education strategy, adopted in 2005. The strategy is oriented mainly towards promoting transformational development, and secondarily towards addressing fragility. As its main strategic priority within education, USAID promotes equitable access to quality basic education. For example, USAID encourages countries to replace school fees with adequate funding for primary education wherever possible, to encourage poor families to keep their children in school. Both the strategy and standing USAID policy strongly emphasize equitable access to basic education for girls and women. At the same time, USAID works to improve educational quality, to ensure that all learners gain the basic skills and knowledge they need to pursue subsequent learning and to function effectively in all aspects of life. To achieve these objectives, USAID encourages and helps countries to adopt improved policies; builds institutional capacity to manage educational systems efficiently; promotes improved instruction, especially through support for teacher training; and encourages institutional reforms to enhance financial transparency and accountability and to foster greater community and parental participation in the educational process.
The Agency's basic education program supports the multilateral Education for All initiative, which consists of six ambitious goals developed and endorsed by the international community, including the U.S. government. These goals were adopted in 2000 and endorsed by the international community, including the United States. They include: 1) Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education; 2) Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls and other underserved groups, have access to and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality; 3) Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programs; 4) Achieving a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015 and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults; 5) Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equity in education by 2015; 6) Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.
Program Emphasis
The great majority of USAID's overall support for basic education is directed toward children, especially at the primary level. On a much more selective basis, USAID invests in improvements in pre-primary education and lower-secondary schooling. In addition, USAID supports literacy and other basic education for adults and out-of-school adolescents, in both formal and non-formal settings.
Investments in systems development and strengthening, training and technical assistance, and policy reform in education lead to higher percentages of girls gaining equitable access to an education, higher teacher qualifications, and improvement in all the major factors underlying quality. These types of investments also have many other positive impacts on a country's overall development. USAID therefore directs almost all basic education funding in these three areas: roughly 40% for systems development and strengthening, 40% for training and technical assistance, and 20% for policy reform.
Africa has the greatest need for basic education assistance and receives the largest portion of basic education support. In FY 2006, Sub-Saharan Africa will receive 46%, Asia and the Near East 35%, and Latin America and the Caribbean 19% of the $300 base appropriation for basic education.
Program Successes
More than 23 million students and adult learners benefited from USAID's basic education assistance in FY 2005, a 9 percent increase from FY 2004.
Among donors USAID is known for its innovation in using alternative delivery systems such as accelerated learning systems aimed at reintegrating out-of-school children into the formal schooling system, as well as radio-based instruction to connect with hard-to-reach learners. These programs often achieve higher entry, retention, and completion rates.
USAID is also a leader among donors in leveraging non-ODA (official development assistance) support for basic education - generating greater than a 4-to-1 match since FY 2000. However, increased mobilization and efficient use of domestic education resources are the real keys to closing the financing gap in basic education.
Since 1990, adult literacy in developing countries has increased from two-thirds to three-fourths. Net enrollment in primary schools has increased to more than 82%, with 84% of those completing primary school embarking on a secondary education.
USAID has contributed to these improvements through various initiatives:
The Nigeria YES program combines local community resources with support from USAID and ChevronTexaco to provide basic education and entrepreneurial training to out-of-school youth, building basic skills while stimulating business growth.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID is supporting the Centers of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT), a hemispheric Presidential Education Initiative that has introduced practical, child-centered, interactive approaches to teaching literacy in 15 countries in the region. Using evidence-based research on best practices in literacy instruction, CETT partners directly with educational institutions. CETT has also leveraged significant private sector resources. Through a Global Development Alliance with Scholastic Books, Inc., the program has made over 250,000 children's books available to CETT classrooms. CETT is piloting a multi-country test for measuring student achievement in literacy. The results will be used to further refine the teacher training program. An independent evaluation demonstrated that CETT teachers perform better on critical dimensions of literacy instruction.
In South Africa, Bangladesh, and Egypt, USAID is helping governments and local businesses partner with the Sesame Workshop to provide culturally appropriate TV, radio and print-based early childhood education programs.
In a series of 10 case studies of community schools, business-aided education, radio-based instruction and other alternative educational delivery programs, USAID has reported to the global community on cost-effective alternatives to improve access, school completion and learning outcomes among hard-to-reach learners in such diverse countries as Bangladesh, Egypt, Mali, Ghana, Guatemala and Honduras.
An alliance with Sun Microsystems and the Academy for Educational Development is building a global learning portal to link educators and provide resources, training and support to fill the "capacity gap" in education systems worldwide. This portal already serves as the extranet for UNESCO, the global Fast Track Initiative and Education International - the association of teachers unions worldwide representing 29 million teachers.
Program Challenges
In working to promote equitable access to quality basic education, USAID faces challenges in both dimensions: access and quality. Worldwide, more than 115 million primary school-aged children are not enrolled in school; three in five are girls. Many of those who do enroll drop out before completing their primary education. In some countries, a lack of available public funds for basic education, along with inefficient use of those funds that are available, force reliance on school fees collected from parents, which tend to discourage poor families from keeping their children in school. In most countries, little funding is available for pre-school education, which could help achieve greater gains in basic education.
Furthermore, educational quality in most developing countries remains low, especially in schools serving children from poor households. On international standardized tests, children in developing countries consistently score far below those in developed countries. As a result, many children leave school with very limited basic skills. In sum, even among those who complete primary school, many are not receiving a quality education. Access is not enough without simultaneous improvements in learning outcomes.
Despite substantial improvements in access to and completion of primary education, one in four adults remains illiterate and thus unable to gain access to skilled employment or to contribute fully to her country's development. This pattern is particularly damaging in countries severely affected by HIV/AIDS, conflict and other crises, which have caused them to lose large portions of their skilled workforce.
Working within the broad parameters of USAID's education strategy while adapting to specific country circumstances, USAID basic education programs seek to address these challenges. In doing so, they work in close collaboration with host-country governments, other donors, NGOs, and private sector partners.
Strategic Allocation of Basic Education Resources
USAID allocates basic education funding according to these standards: country need, absorptive capacity, host country commitment, and program performance. During the budget process, technical experts in basic education assess countries using these criteria.
The assessment of country need considers both the demand for a skilled and educated populace required for development and the education system's strengths and weaknesses to meet this demand in country. Absorptive capacity focuses on the country's ability to use development assistance efficiently and effectively. The focus on results relates not only to the education sector but also to the capacity of a country to employ educated citizens effectively in its development.
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